This thesis reports on a qualitative study that documented one teacher’s research-based practice of teaching students to read in a Grade 9 ESL Academic mathematics course. Specifically, this thesis focuses on the description of the range of strategies and reading-based activities that the teacher used; the experiences and influences that led him to include reading strategies in his regular instructional practice; and, the challenges that he faced when integrating these strategies routinely as part of his daily mathematics program. The complexity of simultaneously teaching mathematics and reading strategies in the context of a Grade 9 ESL Academic course is also discussed. The study was conducted early in the second semester of the 2007-2008 school year. A variety of data collection methods were used: interview, classroom observation, and document collection. The findings of the study provide concrete examples of designing lessons that embed the use of reading strategies (e.g., vocabulary development, reading supplementary text, and reflection) to teach or inform mathematics concepts. The large number of ESL students in the observed class underscored the importance of incorporating reading strategies into the mathematics program in order to facilitate ESL students’ language learning processes. The teacher under study focused on using additional literature as an aid to develop students’ deeper understanding of mathematics concepts and introduced reading strategies as a means to improve students’ reading comprehension of supplementary text; however, he did not apply these strategies to lessons directed at the comprehension of specific mathematics text. The conclusions suggest that mathematics teachers require substantive classroom-based evidence and support from Ministry of Education personnel, subject specialists, school administrators, and peers in order to be convinced of the value of reading in mathematics class and to embark on their own program for implementing reading strategies and reading-based activities into regular mathematics learning activities. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2008-11-06 13:51:42.326

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yes / In this study, we investigated whether reading influences contrast adaptation differently in young adult emmetropic and myopic participants at the spatial frequencies created by text rows and character strokes. Pre-adaptation contrast sensitivity was measured for test gratings with spatial frequencies of 1cdeg-1 and 4cdeg-1, presented horizontally and vertically. Participants then adapted to reading text corresponding to the horizontal “row frequency” of text (1cdeg-1), and vertical “stroke frequency” of the characters (4cdeg-1) for 180s. Following this, post-adaptation contrast sensitivity was measured. Twenty young adults (10 myopes, 10 emmetropes) optimally corrected for the viewing distance participated. There was a significant reduction in logCS post-text adaptation (relative to pre-adaptation logCS) at the row frequency (1cdeg-1 horizontal) but not at the stroke frequency (4cdeg-1 vertical). logCS changes due to adaptation at 1cdeg-1 horizontal were significant in both emmetropes and myopes. Comparing the two refractive groups, myopic participants showed significantly greater adaptation compared to emmetropic participants. Reading text on a screen induces contrast adaptation in young adult observers. Myopic participants were found to exhibit greater contrast adaptation than emmetropes at the spatial frequency corresponding to the text row frequency. No contrast adaptation was observed at the text stroke frequency in either participant group. The greater contrast adaptation experienced by myopes after reading warrants further investigation to better understand the relationship between near work and myopia development.

This thesis focuses on two important aspects of non-native reading comprehension: text readability assessment, which estimates the reading difficulty of a given text for L2 learners, and learner summarisation assessment, which evaluates the quality of learner summaries to assess their reading comprehension. We approach both tasks as supervised machine learning problems and present automated assessment systems that achieve state-of-the-art performance. We first address the task of text readability assessment for L2 learners. One of the major challenges for a data-driven approach to text readability assessment is the lack of significantly-sized level-annotated data aimed at L2 learners. We present a dataset of CEFR-graded texts tailored for L2 learners and look into a range of linguistic features affecting text readability. We compare the text readability measures for native and L2 learners and explore methods that make use of the more plentiful data aimed at native readers to help improve L2 readability assessment. We then present a summarisation task for evaluating non-native reading comprehension and demonstrate an automated summarisation assessment system aimed at evaluating the quality of learner summaries. We propose three novel machine learning approaches to assessing learner summaries. In the first approach, we examine using several NLP techniques to extract features to measure the content similarity between the reading passage and the summary. In the second approach, we calculate a similarity matrix and apply a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to assess the summary quality using the similarity matrix. In the third approach, we build an end-to-end summarisation assessment model using recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Further, we combine the three approaches to a single system using a parallel ensemble modelling technique. We show that our models outperform traditional approaches that rely on exact word match on the task and that our best model produces quality assessments close to professional examiners.

In this study, I analyse current studies to discover the common Double-Entry Diary points which result in reading literacy development and find the essential data which support this theory and describe the state of reading among Czech children from eight to fifteen years of age. Although reading literacy is a well-recognized feature of academic writing, little research has been undertaken as to its models. Because the purpose of reading is using the texts as efficiently as possible, teachers should use methods which allow a variety of active strategies. What we need is a sustained coordinated effort. In my study I focus on fourth-grade primary schools learners who have mastered the technique of reading and are ready to improve their understanding of the text and get an idea of what is hidden beyond the text. Its goal is to familiarize the reader with the reasons for effective education using the Double-Entry Diary method, which originated in the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking International Consortium. This paper focuses on the issue of theoretical analysis of previous research and literature. It presents specific educational practices and deals with the consequences that lead to practical usage of this method. The research analysis indicates much strength in this teaching method. This...

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T16:21:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 mariza_ almeida.pdf: 1619858 bytes, checksum: 33d1d7e844e077c4d83b9507e0cc537d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The research aimed to study the text reading study in the 6th year of the Basic Teaching aimed to: a) Investigate the guiding assumptions of reading instruction in the classroom, for the text study. b) Develop methodological referrals that can contribute to the study of the text reading teaching and learning in the 6th year of the Basic Teaching. The questioning that guided the research focused on the fact that most students do not realize text study reading activities with an effective understanding of the text read, are passive readers without critical position. We have adopted the concept of interactional language Bakhtin (2003) and Geraldi (1984, 2003), reading as intellectual labor for the production of sense, the role of facilitator and different reading levels (intelligible, interpretable and understandable), proposed by Orlandi (2008). The development of the classes was analyzed based on the content proposed by Zabala (1998), being factual, conceptual, procedural and attitudinal contents. Methodologically, the research is qualitative, linked to ethnography and action research and told how recording instrument of educational activities in the field diary. The didactic proposal elaborated and applied proposes work with seven genres (strip, interview, movie, story, cartoon, comics and opinion article) with students from 6th year at a public school in the city of Altônia/PR. For each text have been prepared and applied study of the text of activities related to each of the reading levels. As a result of this process of research, we understand that there is a need to continue the work with the text reading study with students, and, in general: the intelligible level students dominate relatively well; the interpretable level some students dominate at different levels of difficulty; reading procedures and understandable level most students had difficulties, but with the mediation of the teacher, managed to carry out the proposed activities satisfactorily. / A pesquisa destinada ao estudo sobre a leitura estudo de texto no 6º ano do Ensino Fundamental objetivou: a) Investigar os pressupostos norteadores do ensino da leitura em sala de aula, destinada ao estudo de texto. b) Desenvolver encaminhamentos metodológicos que possam contribuir para o ensino-aprendizagem de leitura estudo do texto no 6º ano do Ensino Fundamental. A problematização que norteou a investigação teve como foco o fato de que grande parte dos alunos não realizam atividades de leitura estudo de texto com uma compreensão efetiva do texto lido, são leitores passivos e sem posicionamento crítico. Adotamos a concepção de linguagem interacionista Bakhtin (2003) e Geraldi (1984, 2003), a leitura como trabalho intelectual para a produção dos sentidos, o papel do professor mediador e os diferentes níveis de leitura (inteligível, interpretável e compreensível), propostos por Orlandi (2008). O desenvolvimento das aulas foi analisado a partir dos conteúdos propostos por Zabala (1998), sendo conteúdos factuais, conceituais, procedimentais e atitudinais. Metodologicamente, a pesquisa é qualitativa, vinculada à etnografia e à pesquisa-ação e contou como instrumento de registro das atividades didáticas no diário de campo. A proposta didática que elaboramos e aplicamos propõe o trabalho com sete gêneros textuais (tira, entrevista, filme, reportagem, cartum, história em quadrinhos e artigo de opinião) com alunos do 6º ano de uma escola pública do município de Altônia/PR. Para cada texto foram elaboradas e aplicadas atividades de estudo do texto referentes a cada um dos níveis de leitura. Como resultado desse processo de investigação, entendemos que há a necessidade de continuidade do trabalho com a leitura estudo do texto com os alunos, sendo que, em geral: o nível inteligível os alunos dominam relativamente bem; o nível interpretável alguns alunos dominam, em diferentes níveis de dificuldades; os procedimentos de leitura e o nível compreensível a maioria dos estudantes teve dificuldades, mas, com a mediação do professor, conseguiram realizar as atividades propostas a contento

The main aim of the thesis are the mapping the level of understanding narrative text for student of fifth grade primary school with the typical development of reading skills. The thesis deal with the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. The thesis is traditionally divided into a theoretical and empirical part. The first part of the thesis prestnts the theoretical background research problems of comprehension the text. Attention is focused mainly on the domain of listening comprehension and reading comprehension, including a summary of the current state of knowledge about the relationship between both skills in foreign and Czech studies, as well as the diagnostics of reading and prerequisites that are reflected on the comprehensions the text. In the practical part are conclusions expected on its own research, which was attended by 40 students taught by the analytic-synthetic metod of reading, are compared with the results of the three year research project GAČR - Reading complrehension - typical development and its risks, where attended 59 students of fifth grade primary school taught by the same reading method. In addition to comprehension level will be monitored by level of basic language skills.